


we're the reckless, we are the wild youth

by whitelilly0989



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M, Tumblr: promptsinpanem
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-10-07
Updated: 2013-04-08
Packaged: 2017-11-15 19:19:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/530785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whitelilly0989/pseuds/whitelilly0989
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>the hunger games. Katniss. Katniss/Peeta. No ratings apply.</p>
<p>“Fate bends. It’s not her name. The house that will shut the boards and the windows tonight to enclose their grief will not be hers.”  Prim doesn’t get reaped. (will continue as more than a one-shot in the future).</p>
<p>Written for Prompts in Panem AU Week - Day 7</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 001

She stands in the crowd, looks at the Justice Hall, and focuses on Effie Trinket’s pink hair with balled fists; sends a prayer into the sky.

_Not me, Not me, Not me,_ she repeats in her head as a mantra, her pulse beats to the syllables as well, trying to bend fate like the willows that surrender at the shore of the lake. 

Effie opens the slip of paper, she sees the glint of her purple nails and she narrows her eyes. _Not me, Not me, Not me, Not me._

Fate bends, it’s not her name. The house that will shut the boards and the windows tonight to enclose their grief will not be hers.

She watches as Madge Undersee’s pristine white shoes climb up the steps, a testament to the fact that not even the strong ones can withstand the fall. Her throat constricts; she looks at Prim and sighs because she’s safe at least for another year.

 

 

 

 

It’s not over yet.

She sighs as the boys’ slips of paper are ruffled; she swears the wind carries the sound of the paper all the way to her ears. She looks for Gale with the corner of her eyes; doesn’t dare to fully look his way in case she might curse his luck somehow. Destiny was already kind to her today; what if she already owes it too much and Gale’s life ends up her debt.

She stares at the sun until she can’t see anymore; rough sunlight falling on her face furiously. She feels the collective sigh of the crowd, senses how the oxygen is sucked around her; draws in a breath herself hoping she doesn’t know the name that’s going to be read; hoping she doesn’t know the boy’s body as an extension of herself.

When the name is read, she sighs. She finally dares to look at Gale in the eyes, half smile perched upon his lips; impossible not to smile in response.

But she casts a stare at the boy at the platform, holding Madge’s hand at Effie’s request, and she blames the gods and feels ungrateful because she _did_ know the name.

Every debt must be paid somehow; especially in this world where young lives are the currency the government accepts. She figures Peeta Mellark’s life as payment is an unkindness, remembers an episode she can’t forget no matter how much time beats at her door.

She’s certain he remembers too; his eyes lock on hers before turning around; with Effie leading him past doors the sun blocks from her view.

 

 

 

 

The crowd slowly dissipates, children cling to their parents; parents cling to their kids. Everything’s done in a clipped way, trying to keep their joy concealed; whispering congratulations on going unscathed for another year.

She searches for Gale’s silhouette, but he finds her first. His arms wrap around her; and her body unfolds in his. _We’re okay_ , she says and her voice is so childlike, so full of disbelief, a voice she’d allow only to him. She notices her arms were shaking only when they stop at the contact with the skin above his neck; and she dares a smile to the _I know_ his breath blows on her right cheek.

They disentangle themselves rhythmically; an ancient dance perfected as the years have passed: arms loosen around her waist; a foot takes a step back, fingers ghost over calloused palms for half a second longer than they should; lungs breathe, they exhale.

It’s no surprise when both heads turn to the Justice Hall at the same time.

At unison their glee fades, the illusion of safety shatters and breaks; leaves sharp pieces on the floor. She can’t think of a year when both tributes have been somewhat privileged; as privileged as you could get in District 12. The son of a baker, the Mayor’s daughter; the odds playing against those who didn’t need to play games of hunger; bargaining for scraps. She knows this year’s reaping will unsettle the whole town, and she sees it in the way Gale’s shoulders tense like the string of her bow while he stares at the structure; she feels it in the roaring whispers of the people walking by.  

She feels it in the way her breathing catches remembering blue eyes on a rainy night.

_You should go say goodbye_ , he says interrupting their gloom signaling to the building in an offhanded manner _._  She’s confused for a moment; and it spreads across her face like wildfire; altering her composure, setting a familiar scowl upon her eyebrows. _She was your friend_ , he continues and she catches herself remembering he doesn’t know, has no way of knowing why a blonde boy, a slap and burned bread creep upon her conscience; that he means she should say goodbye to Madge, send her to her death with more than the encounter with the strawberries earlier that day _._ She sighs and nods her assent, relaxing the muscles on her face a little.

She tries, but she can’t shake the thought it’s her debt the baker’s son’s sacrifice will pay.

 

 

 

 

She goes to Madge’s chamber first.

She turns the handle on the door; and she sees Madge by the window, staring at the sun outside. She regrets going in the second the lock falls into place, but she walks up to her noiselessly anyway; tries to convince herself Madge would’ve done the same had the roles been reversed.

She feels a rush of relief when she sees Madge’s face and notices she’s not weepy, or teary; just tapping her fingers in the wood with her right hand; clutching something in the pocket of her dress with the other.

She takes a seat in one of the velvety chairs near the window; passes her hand through the fabric back and forth; back and forth; trying to find words to say to this girl that has coexisted with her in silence for God knows how long. The need for words soon vanishes, Madge turns around and her voice acquires a slight manic need as she speaks _could you put this on me, please?_

Madge presses a golden pin to her hand, clutches at it like a sick person in agony bites a stick when her mother has nothing useful to give for the pain. She looks at the pin momentarily, stares at the bird taking flight through an arrow; thinks of how much money this pin would be worth in bread, cheese, meat and medicine. She attaches the pin to her dress anyway, the light dances off it contrasting with the white dress she chose to wear.

_My mother would like it on me_ , Madge speaks almost inaudibly, voice breaking slightly; and she vaguely remembers the Mayor’s wife; only knows she’s sicker more times than she’s healthy, and she pities Madge for reasons that have little to do with her death in the weeks to pass.

She has never been good with words, and their dynamic was never based on them either, so she surprises herself when she hugs her friend goodbye and leaves without another glance before she has a chance to break at all.

 

 

 

She runs down the hall and searches for fresh air in the inside garden of the Justice Hall. She inhales; then vomits on top of the gardenias. It’s the first year the reaping of tributes has hit close to home like this, so she retches and heaves just one time, collects herself and walks back in again.

She likes her debts paid, to give her businesses closure.  

Her faces closes off; one tribute down, one more to go.

 

 

 

 

She marches determinately into the room and only stops when his astonishment almost knocks a lamp over the marble floor. He catches the porcelain in his hands swiftly in a display of quick reflexes she thinks would come in handy in the forest; submerged inside some woods. She furrows her eyebrows deeply, thinking of arenas and if maybe catching things will be useful once he’s out there on his own.

He sets the lamp aside and she looks at him then, _really_ looks at things about him as if searching for a treasure without an accurate map. She gazes upon his shoulders; sees the contours of his neck, the slope the muscle makes before it bends with his clavicle. She navigates his arms and sees the thickness of the veins protruding on them and she mentally compares them to Gale’s. Where Gale’s body is slender and lean, Peeta’s body is built, solid and strong, product of wrestling and hard work carrying things at his father’s place.

She dares a quick glance down to his legs; tries to assess their performance, when her concentration is interrupted _Why are you here?_

_You helped me once,_ the statement is supposed to be kind, convey how much he helped, but instead the words come out choppy; bitten and sounding like an accusation more than anything else.

He quirks his head and his eyelashes vanish in the light, his hair is so blonde it looks like gold and luxuries that do not help save lives, do not bring food to the table no matter how much you will them to try.

_If I hadn’t, you would’ve died._ He offers the sentence as a defense, but there’s a gentle resignation in his voice, barely audible, and she feels the notes lodge inside her, fears for the lamb going to the slaughter. Mostly, she can’t believe she won’t settle the score; that he will die leaving red numbers written in blood on her checking account.

She remembers the hunger, the freezing cold and thinks of the sound of the rain; shudders like it’s now and not more than five years since. She thinks about dandelions and plants and survival and the will to fight, the sheer impulse to _live_ , and wishes she could ignite something inside him, make him collect what he’s owed. She looks at her hands but they’re empty, just like that girl 6 years ago she’s got nothing but means to her own ends.

But she’s not eleven. She’s the same fatherless girl from the Seam; but she can take care of herself, doesn’t need the pity or the alms a poor district has to give. She’s not eleven and she’s not hungry or cold or dying; but _he_ is, even if he’s not shaking, or blue at the lips.

She decides it then, Peeta Mellark will come back, and the score will be set.

_Listen_ , she mouths with urgency, tries to pick the words she’ll say before men in white take her out of the room. _You came in second in the wrestling championship our school had last year._ His eyes narrow, she doesn’t stop. _You have broad shoulders, and you’re strong, which means you have a chance in hand to hand combat._

_Katniss –_ he starts to shake his head, she can see the resolve to die in his eyes, recognizes it because it’s what was reflected in his own eyes before he saved her from an icy hell.

She ignores her name upon his tongue, raises her voice almost to a yell, _You have a way with words. I’ve seen you deal with clients at the bakery, and you’re kind. Use that._

_I have no chance of coming back_ , he yells above her voice, water in his eyes for reasons she attributes to fear because if not, then she doesn’t understand.

She looks deep into his eyes, puts both hands on both sides of him and squeezes for good measure, imprinting her next words on him.

_Yes, you do. Just try._

He looks at her palms on both his arms, and she slides one to his fingers, brings his open hand to her lips.

She closes her eyes, doesn’t open them until the Peacekeepers finish taking her outside and looks right at the sun instead.

 

 

 

She goes straight to the meadow afterwards; plucks a single dandelion from the ground and blows on it, watches as the seeds scatter and blend with the wind.

Miles from her, when the seeds settle into the ground they grow as weeds of hope for her, but mostly just for him.


	2. 002

That night she dreams she’s in the woods; bow in hand, poised to shoot. The wind rustles the leaves; there’s the echo of a stream; but otherwise everything is still.

 She keeps still, blending with the scenery; becoming one with nature looking for her target, trying to find the game she’s aiming at; but after a few seconds she realizes there’s no beating heart in here other than hers.

 She sees both Peeta and Madge’s bodies on the floor; eyes closed like they are sleeping, hair spread across the foliage like the halo of those angels no one can afford to think exist anymore. She thinks of going to them, shaking them awake; ask what they are doing lying in the grass, won’t Madge’s dress get dirty because, after all she’s wearing white; but there are odd angles to their legs and a stiffness to their spines; an unnatural tangle at their clasped hands full of dirt and ash.

 She understands it way too slowly and hates herself for it because it actually freezes up her veins. She sees the blood pooling underneath them, hesitantly makes out the stained mess in Peeta’s chest and feels her stomach drop because what use did it have to think his end would be different. The games are designed to end lives; not grant desires wished on dandelions that would benefit only her selfish heart.

 The trail of blood coming out of them advances to her feet, accusing her, condemning her, finding her guilty, executing her without defense. She takes a step back, one to the left, one to the right, but it doesn’t matter where she runs to she can’t outrun the dead, and when the red gnaws at her feet she screams, and the mockingjays begin to sing.

 The rest of the night is cold; she doesn’t close her eyes after the nightmare is gone.

 

 

 

 

She watches. For the first time, she _really_ watches.

She watches the recaps of every reaping; wills herself to measure other tributes in scales of how difficult a challenge they would present for the boy that once saved her life.

She watches their _own_ reaping, Madge’s hair sticking to her lips with the sudden breeze, wonders why her mother’s lips turn to a tight line when her name is called, why Peeta’s mother doesn’t weep when her son comes up the stage. She watches, and tries to find that moment when their eyes met; and looks for herself in the crowd.

She watches as he is set on fire at the tribute parade; feels a knot in her throat pushing its way out before she understands it doesn’t consume him; sees him wave, sees him smile, sees the masses at his feet, and she remembers how to breathe.  

She watches for their rankings, blesses the 8 he receives as a score, takes it as a promise, and wills it to be true.

_I am trying,_ she dreams of his voice, soft like morning dew; _I’m doing what you asked._

Mostly, she watches so she can look for signs in the way he carries himself to tell her she won’t have to give the boy’s body to the earth. The earth took her father, her mother’s soul, and she won’t allow it to also take away the only hope she has left.

She shudders when she thinks of this boy as hers.

 

 

 

 

They watch the interviews together.

Hazelle speaks with her mother in hushed whispers. Prim plays with Posy in her lap as the boys tease them; Katniss and Gale sit side by side.

She sees the shake in her mother’s head before the transmission begins, notices the way Hazelle touches her elbow and wonders the reason for their pain. She thinks it’s selfish, what right do they have to wallow when their kids are safe within arm’s reach, and others are out there, paraded around and made likable only to watch them fall to their deaths. She thinks it and narrows her eyes, but then she feels guilty, she remembers both their mothers have been visiting the Mayor’s house a lot these days, probably trying to calm a grieving mother who’s always been ill. She remembers she and Gale used to be the ones who walked to the Mayor’s door trading berries for their pain and suddenly she has lost all will to judge.

Madge comes out first, dressed in a light blue dress, hair pulled up in a pretentious knot, crimson red upon her lips. She sits beside Caesar Flickerman in one swift ladylike motion, there’s not a doubt in the whole of Panem that this girl is poised, has learned etiquette for years. Katniss senses through the screen how the people gaze at her beauty, girls ogling wanting to be her, boys shuddering because they will never have her. She feels Gale tense at her side, seam grey eyes enthralled by the screen, and she can’t shake the pang of _something_ that makes her insides fire up.

_Madge Undersee!_ , Caesar exclaims after he shakes her hand and guides her to her chair, _you have caused quite the commotion since you came here._

Madge smiles. It’s not a coy smile, it’s a smile full of pearly white teeth, so pleasant looking with a hint of something more Katniss can’t quite grasp. She fears it, she doesn’t understand why, doesn’t think she can.

_I hope that’s not a bad thing,_ she blushes, looks a little at her hands, directs her eyes at Caesar, and he laughs in earnest giving way for the audience to laugh back. The blue-haired man proceeds to compliment her on her score for training, and Katniss can’t believe she let that 9 slip by; the number rises like a threat all the way up her spine and gets stuck like pressing weight upon her shoulders.

But she’s your friend, something inside her seems to say, but it’s dulled by acts of kindness that need to be repaid.  

_So Madge, what was it like at the tribute parade? When you came out of that chariot wearing fire, my heart just about stopped._

It takes her a second to understand what he means, but when she does, the wheels in Katniss’ head begin to roll like avalanches and she remembers that _of course_ Peeta wasn’t set on fire alone.

Madge was on fire too.  

Madge laughs again, looks toward her side for a second, and Katniss thinks there’s a slight nod to somewhere in particular before she continues.  _That’s funny. My heart and Peeta’s almost did too._

There’s a current zapping through her that runs from toes to head, she’s certain Gale feels it, and he’s just as confused as her. She looks at Gale and Gale looks back, and their faces mirror each other’s confusion as all sounds fall away. Interviews are made to make the tribute shine, get sponsors, have a chance. Tributes are rivals who try to save their own skins; there are no teams, there are no friends, what is she doing bringing up Peeta’s name?

It takes the whole of Panem on stride. There are _‘ooh_ s’ and _‘aahs’_ in the audience at the sound of an unspoken rule being bent, but Caesar does what he does best and Katniss is grateful for the first time that he has interviewed dying children for decades.

_For those who don’t know, Peeta is the tribute boy from District 12,_ his words are for the crowd and she edges closer to the screen; squeezes the wood of the chair she’s sitting in. _I assume you know him from back home?_ _Goodness, what am I saying? Of course you do! You’re the Mayor’s Daughter._

Caesar then opens his hands gesturing to her like she’s a celebrity and the crowd begins to clap, Peeta’s mention completely forgotten for now. Katniss breathes one drawn out sigh of relief, but there’s a newfound respect for Madge in the audience, now that they have this bit of information that signals her out from the malnourished and wild children District 12 has been known to offer for years. There’s a twinkle of a familiar gold pin strapped to Madge’s dress that makes her lips look drenched in blood, and she sees her friend with brand new eyes; notices how even Prim is hypnotized at the other side of the room.

_Yes, Caesar, that I am._ She straightens her shoulders, and swallows hard.

_So, what do you think will be the best skill a mayor’s daughter will possess in this year’s arena?_

Madge edges closer to her chair and leans a bit to Caesar’s ear with mocked secrecy. _I’ve got a very good aim._

She winks, and the buzzer sounds. Gale’s face lightens up beside her and she thinks she hears Prim hope Madge wins this year, but she can’t look away.  Madge has never been so charming, so angelic; so pretty.

And so, so very deadly.

 

 

 

 

They call his name. He comes up the stage, she prays to a half deaf god like once before, but this time the prayer’s changed. _Just try. Just try. Just try. Just try._

But as she watches that familiar blonde boy whose voice has constantly crowded her dreams flashing the right smile and making everyone laugh, it becomes evident for everyone that he is not trying. He is _effortlessly_ winning a country’s heart.

She looks at his face, memorizes his features. She sees the way he talks with his hands, half doubling his knuckles; never opening quite his palm. She wonders if that’s one of the habits of baking; for his hands to be wired to knead bread; give shape, to mold.

She thinks about his hands molding up the world; what kind of world would that be.

But she knows. She knows it’s a matter of seconds before Madge’s stunt somehow ends up being mentioned, and she swallows thickly before he squares his shoulders and Caesar finishes sniffing the scent of roses Peeta apparently has as cologne.

_Peeta, so Madge mentioned your heart nearly stopped at the tribute parade._ He lets the sentences hang; raises his eyebrows at the mention of Madge’s name.

_Well, can you blame me?_ Peeta responds without hesitation, _I thought I was going to burn to death._

The audience laughs, the people in her own house seem to relax into his allure, but she doesn’t make a sound.

When the laughter dies down, Caesar’s tone is teasing, but the subtext underneath it demands a serious answer and before he’s said anything, Katniss knows the words foaming at his mouth, and her stomach knots.

_Was Madge your girlfriend, back home?_

It’s so direct, and so on point, she thinks of the arrows she shoots and how they never miss their mark.  But arrows are arrows, and words are not words; not when lives are at stake, and she doesn’t understand why the response is not coming from Peeta’s mouth or why he is taking a deep breath and considering the answer to the question as if hesitation has taken over his brain.

_No, no,_ his words are steeled, so sure, _we are just best friends._

She knows that is not true. She’s the closest thing Madge has to a friend, and she would’ve noticed if Peeta Mellark had started hanging out with them for the past months. She knows it’s not true and yet she finds herself questioning her beliefs because he’s just so sure, and it’s so believable; and who would dare to question that good-natured face.  

He goes on about how they’ve been friends from the cradle, how his father and her mother ran neighbor shops, of Sundays spent playing hide and seek, eating frosting from the bakery when no one was around and how they’ve been told they look like siblings because of their striking blonde locks.

She allows herself to be confused for a second, but then everything clicks. She searches in her mind for him and she gets pieces. Pieces of him scattered through her memory; events that were too trivial to hold any other significance than the fact that her savior was in them. She flashes to the nod of his head when a client gives him a hard time, the scowl he sets when he lets his big brother beat him in a game of chess; and then she understands.

_Why are they lying?_ Prim asks, and suddenly it’s just so evident that she’s a child, a child who can’t grasp the lengths one has to go to survive, how you face your demons and your fears and suddenly lying through gritted teeth and breaking the law jumping through a fence look like the same thing.

_To get the people’s sympathies._ It’s Gale who answers and his voice is so agape.

Surely everyone’s heart is warming up to the best friends of District 12 and she starts biting her lip. She can’t decide if this is the best or the worst idea the Games have ever seen.

_But surely, there’s a girl back home,_ Caesar continues and she’s brought back from her daze.

It’s the first time in the last minutes Peeta hasn’t looked self-possessed. There’s some hesitation in his eyes but he shakes his head smiling still, his eyes downcast on the floor.

_Peeta, come on._ Caesar coaxes, and addresses the crowd. _All these ladies want to know if a handsome man like you is spoken for._

The crowd goes wild, there’s cat calling, and screams, and Peeta makes a gesture with his hand for the audience to quiet down. It reminds her of a story of a man who calmed storms, wielded lightning with his voice.

_There is a girl back home._ He breathes the words out. _But she doesn’t know how I feel, and I’m not sure what she feels about me._  

_What’s her name?_ Caesar starts.

For a boy who has spent so much time giving all of them the show they wanted he seems to want to protect what’s in his mind. Katniss can relate to that. After all, it’s what she would do with him if she had the chance. But then her hand is violently gripping Gale’s and the whole room’s eyes are on her face, and there’s a high pitched sound threatening to rasp her throat because this is a different reaping, to play a different game.

_Katniss Everdeen,_ he says, and she’s set on fire with his flames, burning but not consuming and she continues screaming that animalistic shriek in the walls of her skull but it’s as if her body forgets how to make a sound.

 

 

 

 

She understands it in a dream.  She asked him to try, and this is it.

This is his strategy. This is his act. He has to lie, because she asked. He has to lie; and the lies are her fault, so she’ll lie with him because she asked him to give it his all.

It’s the least she can do. At least that’s credit to put to her tab.

This boy is going to win these Games because she will make the world believe his words, whatever it takes. She will bend the Sun and change its course if he were to say it rises from the West rather than the East. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this pretty much simultaneously with the previous chapter. I just hadn't found the courage to post it, until now. New Year, new things. Hopefully chapter 3 is ready soon.


	3. 003

_It’s the night before the Game’s begin and he’s at the rooftop of the Game Center while people scream below celebrating revelations given in interviews, but mostly future deaths._

_“I don’t want them to change me” he says to the girl who’s juggling a pin in her fingers, this girl he does not know at all, yet professed to the world that he trusts. “I’ll try really hard not to die, but if I do –“_

_The girl stops juggling her pin, but doesn’t look at him at all._

_"They won’t change you.”_

_They don’t go to sleep that night. The last thing he sees before he gets prepped is the purple circles under Madge’s eyes._

 

 

 

The morning of the 74th Annual Hunger Games, Katniss rises from her bed slowly before the world has a chance to wake up. She adjusts her boots one by one, grabs her father’s hunting jacket, and sets down the fence as stealthily as she’s done it countless times before. Each foot hovers slowly above the ground before settling noiselessly to prevent the floorboards from squeaking their response.

She hurries across the fence; finds her bow and her quiver in the same familiar hiding spot, but there’s urgency to her impulses, a different bending of her knees as she runs through the foliage trying to catch up with her loud thoughts and balance them out with the silence of her steps outside.

Sometimes she’s not sure if mastering the art of becoming paperweight is a blessing or a curse. Out in the woods hunting and breathing free air she’s learned to relish in the silence; in the hunter’s ability to subdue torrential floods of adrenaline to a zapping quiet before adjusting her aim. It scares her and thrills her; how it’s possible to feel overwhelming peace before her fingers let go of her bowstring and an arrow slashes through an animal robbing its heart from the god forsaken right to beat. There’s a peaceful and eerie mix of stillness in death and she wonders if it’s the same when humans die too; but before she can question herself on whether or not Peeta will feel it; she senses Gale coming before she actually hears the sound.

 _Gale._ What is Gale going to say?

She sees him entering the clearing and she has to smile at the fact that she can _see him_ but she never hears his steps. He’s the one who taught her how to become weightless, who taught her the difference between being predator and prey. Gale’s the second person in the world who’s become part of her, who’s not just an extra limb but a puzzle piece that’s part of a whole scheme she can’t dare herself to see. But just because she refuses to see the whole picture, doesn’t mean he won’t ask questions she can’t answer with the truth.

She wishes she knew what the truth really entails.

 _Hey, Catnip,_ the nickname radiates from her center like warm liquid falling thick into her stomach. Sloshy, off-balancing.

It’s instant. She doesn’t know how to pin it, or how to explain it; but even if she could she doesn’t think there’s an accurate language to describe the grayness in their tension, the duplicity in it; the way he smiles at her and she smiles back but their eyes are unforgiving, accusing, his charged with questions and broken promises she doesn’t remember when she made.

She waits for it; she waits for the questions to hit like seamen watch monstrous waves to which they stand no chance rise in the distance. Part of her craves for it, part of her dreads it; but he’s the wave and she’s the boat and she won’t go offering to die at his feet. If she drowns, he’ll have to come to her and ask.

And so, she waits.

 _Do you want to check the snares today?_ His mouth says that, his eyes say _not yet_.  

Who is she to tell the wave to hurry and sink her ship?

Katniss shoots.  Gale traps. The sun is raising in the sky and she figures she’ll have enough waves pushing at her core for the entirety of the Games to cave in now and drown herself in Gale’s questions before they even start.

 

 

 

 

 

But the waves hit.

Oh, how they hit.

 

 

 

 

 

It’s not noon yet, but Katniss can feel the sun on top of her head getting hotter and more scalding by the second. She feels the heaviness in the air as she breathes it in and out; she can clearly hear the effort Gale’s body makes as he chews their feast close to the fence.

She closes her eyes, and the vision is brief; but she sees two things.

One: An arena made of fire and heat, fire that rains from smoky clouds like blessings and promises of purity and delivering destruction instead. Fire that falls off a candlelit sky like melted orange wax in a particularly dark night. Thick tongues of flame dancing like butterflies, multiplying and reproducing like a plague. Clear liquid fire that brims on the surface. Beautiful fire that kisses the grounds and sticks to earth’s skin.

Two: A boy with hair the color of gold running from the flames that engulfed him once and made his heart stop at a parade.

The Games are about to start.

 _We should be heading back_ , she asked that boy to try. She has to _see_ him try.

She stands from the grass where they’re eating berries they’ve just collected, and wipes her hands on her pants to get the message across, but Gale makes no attempts at moving. He placidly looks up, squinting at the eclipse her silhouette forms as she blocks the sun.

She sees Gale at the brink of a dilemma, and she thinks of a cliff or a mountaintop and the long way down. He’s pondering what to say; how to approach the subject, and there’s a feeling knotting from the tips of her fingers to her elbows and beyond, shaking every nerve ending in her upper body and contorting her face because she _knows._

That bastard. What happened to “not yet”?

She thought she had more time to come up with things to say.

He stares at her for what feels like a long time but she faces the wave square on. There’s no running now, there’s no jumping the boat, there’s only floating, swimming or drowning and while she doesn’t know if this conversation will drown her, she has to try. It’s the least she can do.

 _What_. Her one word is clipped. There’s no question mark. It’s not a statement either. It’s a cue.

Gale, say what you’re going to say.

Say that she’s my friend. Say I should be rooting for her.

Say it’s wrong for me to wish for another blonde head to come home.

He doesn’t say that, though. What he says is worse.

 _I just want to understand why he brought up your name._ He sighs the last words defeated, wrapping the fact on a ribbon and leaving the words like a present at her feet.

Katniss turns her head to the side, and for a moment she thinks the sky and the soil are about to switch places but her body has the good sense to stay upright. She’s constantly overestimating her body; she’s always thinking her body will betray her, show signs of things she thinks that she’d rather keep to herself, but her body won’t give in, won’t show physical signs to Gale about how wrong she was on anticipating how this would play out. She’d counted on him to ask questions, she had counted on him to talk about her friendship with the mayor’s daughter; she’d counted on him to even ask her if she knew anything about Madge’s approach to the interviews, if she’d ever seen it coming from their conversations. She’d deposited her faith on him being the one talking, but instead he’s asking her about him; handing her a floor to sing the notes she’s been protecting for so long.

She’s never been a good performer at all, and singing about dandelions to Gale feels like sin.  

She opens her mouth to speak several times but it clasps shut with the clacking of her teeth. The mockingjays are singing somewhere in the woods and she feels the melody of a rainy night at the brink of starvation echoing inside her ribcage; singing about a debt she has to pay that she doesn’t know how to explain. It’s a sad tune, that one, the kind that made her mother catatonic once her father was blown to bits.

 _I get why they are playing the ‘best friends’ angle._ Gale continues, perhaps mistaking her silence for confusion, or pinning it for not knowing what to say. It’s the latter and she knows it. She tends to overestimate her body, as well as Gale’s soldier complex in the wars she has with herself.

_It gives them a foothold, an advantage. They must know that no one in 12 is going to screw up their chances and ruin that story, even if it we all know it’s a lie. And, it also gives an element of humanity to the Games, something the Capitol isn’t used to. It makes them feel things, and gives them an edge. It’s quite clever._

She sees a wild light hold his features as a smile creeps along his lips in wonder. He’s in awe of the strategy and for a second she sees him as a child. That sort of stupid, reckless wonder that makes you think of impossibles. _I wonder who came up with that._

 _Does it matter?_   Her brain finds her vocal chords and she finally utters a sound.

 _What I don’t get,_ he continues as if he hadn’t heard her. Condescending, and self-righteous. And she hates it. _Is why from all the girls he could’ve mentioned, he mentioned you._

She does know why. She holds the key to Gale’s unsolved riddle, to his mythical box of answers, and she knows Gale _knows_. He’s always accepted her as she is, and she’s always accepted him as he is. It’s kind of their thing, the way they move and cohere in the world.

_It’s probably because Madge knew me. She knew I’d play along._

Gale looks at her dubiously, disbelief coloring his manner, and merging with his entire posture, but he says nothing else, and leaves it be.

But what she said is probably true, she decides. It’s not an outright lie, Gale’s right and this is a strategy that involves them both, so they probably talked and probably Madge mentioned her, and probably Peeta agreed.

The lie, however, resides in the silence that follows afterwards. In the decision to ignore the opportunity to come clean to her best friend about the other half of her untold story; in the betrayal she feels inside because she’s a pawn in a strategy to survive, and nothing else.  

Debts are debts, she tells herself. And sometimes they get paid up in lies.

In the silence, as Gale gets up and they make their way across the fence, she knows Gale lies to her too.

 

 

 

_Somewhere, as the prep team dresses him in boots and a black jacket with the number 12 strapped on the back, Peeta clutches a stone shaped like a triangle for dear life. He squeezes as Portia silently combs his hair, feeling sure the edges of the rock are leaving indentations on his skin._

_It’s his token, this simple rock he picked up in district twelve just before jumping on the train. He doesn’t know if he’ll live two weeks from now but he knows that the pointy edge of the rock is real. Madge has her pin and that stormy calm surrounding her, and he has this rock that’s rough and wild, seems to beat and sweat and know it’s in the wrong place, that it was taken from 12 against its will. It gnaws and bites around his knuckles while he flips it back and forth, demanding his best efforts; demanding him to  come back home_

_The rock reminds him of his promise to her. It’s only fitting, a katniss flower is shaped like an arrowhead, and he doesn’t have the plant or the girl, but the stone he presses into his palm to the point of pain is real enough for it to take its hold._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one is shorter than the others. I really hope you enjoy it. Don't be afraid to leave your reviews!


	4. 004

_There’s a man and a girl on a platform. The man’s fingers grab the girl by the arms so tightly she hears her blood vessels scream in protest. He leans into her, it would be menacing if he didn’t look so tired. If she didn’t trust him so blindly._

_If she had a choice._

_The girl looks at the man’s face; she thinks he could’ve been handsome once. He’s perhaps in his early 40’s, but there are heavy bags underneath his eyes as if his eyes have seen so much they have packed up and want to leave his skull. There are age lines in his cheeks, his forehead, and his nose. There’s a particularly marked line that stretches from the corner of his lips down to his chin; she imagines it as the main road in the map that is his skin. She learned just recently that one thick line gets longer every year. A knife carves half an inch of scar at the end of every Game for every kid from Twelve he has watched die in this never-ending profession. She can’t help but wonder if the next cut he makes to his own face will bear her name._

_She focuses on his eyes instead. They are ash gray._

_“Listen kiddo, the first thing you do is-”,_

_“Haymitch, why are you with me and not with-“,_

_They both begin at the same time, but she stops abruptly. She wasn’t counting on her voice sounding so choppy and broken. The mentor takes that as his cue, squeezes harder for good measure. She knows it’s probably the last time someone will hurt her out of good faith, so she clenches her teeth and takes it._

_“Get water. Remember not to go to the cornucopia. And just remember to-_

_She shakes her head. Repeats his name once more._

_“I’m not my aunt. The pin is hers, but I am not my aunt.”_

_Her voice trembles but her last words are punctuated. The mentor swallows. There’s a moment of vulnerability and she sees the ashes in his eyes dance. She hopes he takes it as a form of comfort. She’s not Maysilee Donner, she chants to herself in her head, Maysilee Donner died without doing or accomplishing many things and Madge plans to live to accomplish everything she wants to do. Oh God, even the voice in her own brain sounds terrified._

_“I know you’re not, kiddo” His voice is relaxed, but the grip in her arms doesn’t falter in the slightest. “Don’t flatter yourself”._

_Madge smiles. It’s a smile that quivers at the sides and sits in the middle of a deep breath. The hovercraft arrives, and she thinks she would shake if Haymitch weren’t gripping her so hard. The peacekeepers motion for Haymitch to step aside then. He unceremoniously lets go of her body and she adjusts the mockingjay pin perched in her jacket._

_She moves. Her steps are slow but steady._

_Before she climbs the hovercraft she calls out._

_“May the odds be ever in our favor.”_

_They’re not. But Haymitch nods anyway._

Katniss never understood why people watched the Games.

People in the Capitol are heartless; their motives for watching are inexcusable. She would never understand what kind of sickness had to possess your existence to relish in the premature death of other people’s children; she would never understand the blackness of the veil wrapped around their eyes to make them blind to other people’s suffering. Katniss would never wrap her head around their atrocious boredom, and she would never attempt to try.  

But, on previous years, when she thought about the Districts, at least about those oppressed and in the same precarious circumstances as Twelve, the only reason she could envision was force. The hold the Capitol had over the Districts, the iron fist with which they ruled was so fierce and malignant that you did horrible things just out of fear. Those who were stupid enough to rebel, were made an example, so parents had no choice but to watch their children die and celebrate with a fearful clap when their lungs stopped breathing. In Katniss’ head, the only reason the lower Districts watched the Games was fear so consuming it crept into your mode of life with the same inevitability as falling asleep; fear that no one questioned because those who did ended up buried or tongue deprived or dead among the living.

That was the only reason her mind admitted for watching the Games every single year, defeated and nauseous and sick.

But as she sits with anticipation in the cold floor within the small walls of her house, playing with the laces in her hunting boots as static plays on her screen, Katniss understands a different reason for doing things against your will.

With her body tensed of its own accord, her reason for watching the games are contained in a deep rooted desire to pray, claim, and beg to see a boy with golden hair and blue eyes the color of rain.  

 

 

 

 

The transmission begins.

First, there’s humming; thick black and white lines buzzing incongruously, before the anthem starts playing its rhythmic staccato. The sound is constant and enveloping; it beats at her stomach making it contract with rage. In District 12, the anthem hardly plays, it’s usually the soundtrack of reapings and The Games, and mine explosions where the only thing left to bury are memories and tears. She remembers her father’s funeral and the agonizing shrieks that came from her mother’s mouth and there’s a metallic taste souring her tongue as the anthem’s notes escalate and follow the rise and fall of death.

She thinks it’s fitting, the Capitol plays the song on every official event and parades it like it’s a soldier march; a celebration to be proud of when the occasion is really just a massive organized burial.

Still, when Claudius Templesmith starts the preamble and babbles commentaries and rankings, her palms begin sweating, and her heart starts beating, beating; complaining against her sternum for the fact that it is _there_ and it doesn’t allow the organ to fly away.

It starts beating faster and louder when the capsules are lifted and the arena is revealed.  

For the most part, the arena is the same as it has been other years. There’s a cornucopia in the middle with a neat set of backpacks with supplies sprawled like arms left and right, the most important things down at the center. There’s a wide expanse of green, and she swears it looks like the woods down the fence, the ones she just came back from. But there’s something wrong with this forest, it doesn’t seem to move, or breathe from her side of the screen. It looks stagnant and suspended in time, like the first few seconds before someone faints.   She makes the connection and thinks how the Capitol taints even the most beautiful landscapes, turns the forests that breathe in and out and are so _alive_ into graveyards for no reason at all.

But then there’s the countdown, and her heart synchs itself with the ticking of the clock, searching. She doesn’t know which of the kids that live in District 12 her eyes will find first, but she searches. Searches like a frantic person searches water in the desert amidst twenty three unfortunate souls that will die and corrode there.

She just hopes Peeta’s the twenty fourth, the one to outlive the rest; and the hope curdles her blood because her eyes land on Madge first.

She’s crouching, her eyes are alert. Katniss thinks of a mountain lion ready to pounce, biding its time and suffering the ticking of the clock. Her hair is up in a knot, and there are already loose strands moving against her forehead, demonstrating a windy atmosphere. Madge looks from side to side, seizes her opportunities, and weighs down her options. She’s charming and beautiful as always, the frown in between her eyes and the way she bites her lips is almost endearing and there’s no doubt in the world she must have sponsors already lining up for her, with such a pretty face.

But the thing is Katniss knows a thing or two about fear; and she also knows a thing or two about Madge, and even though there’s nothing that gives her away outright, she senses a brief white terror behind a close up of Madge’s eyes, the same recognition a deer has before an arrow’s aimed at its skull.

Madge flexes her fingers and then turns her head, and blindly, stupidly, Katniss is compelled to follow her gaze.

The hammering in her sternum stops altogether.

She thinks she should’ve foreseen where Madge’s eyes would go, but looking at him comes as a shock, like a punch to the gut. She suddenly becomes aware of where he is, and what he’s doing, and the fact that he could be flat out dead in less than a minute, yet he looks so alive, so young, with such possibilities of a better world burning in her heart like an open flame.

She makes a mental inventory of his features while the camera focuses on him. His gear is similar to that of all the other tributes, there’s a twelve strapped on the back and one of his hands grips something in the pocket of his jacket, his fist balled and tense. His breathing looks ragged and adrenaline fueled, and the only thing that seems calm in his body is the way his neck bends and focuses his eyes on Madge.

They hold each other’s gaze for the remainder of the minute, and even though she knows about the strategy, and about the concocted friendship they’re trying to sell, she still feels it stupid and naïve. What if they end up killing each other, what advantage would they have then.

But the minute is up, and everyone steps off their plates and they stop looking at each other so drastically, that if she hadn’t seen them holding on to each other’s eyes, she could’ve sworn they were the strangers they’ve been in Twelve all along.

 

 

 

 

Their paths diverge. It’s not a hard decision for Katniss to decide which path she wants to witness.

While Madge runs to the backpacks near the middle of the Cornucopia, Peeta runs to the sides of the mayhem, grabs the last backpack on the right and makes a dash for the sides of the forest.

Good, she thinks. Her woods will keep him safe, at least for a while.

He runs. Runs like a lost soul, falling and scraping his arms and legs with the spindly branches of the trees; but he always rises; always stands back up. The knowledge makes her breathe easier; he won’t give up and he will keep on running and her heart will keep on beating at a different frequency but with the same urgency of his ragged breaths. From her vantage point at home, she can see where the other tributes are and she tenses her muscles when he’s dangerously close to one of the blinking dots in her screen, but she wills him to take a violent turn and the danger decreases enough for her to heave a sigh.

She loses sight of him only when the cameras remember what the game is about and turn to the bloodshed at the starting point.

Only then she concerns herself with Madge.

 

 

 

 

_The cannons start sounding._

_She runs. Her blood is cold against her bones, and there are black spots everywhere she turns, but the ground is solid against the soles of her feet, and that’s enough for the motion to keep on repeating itself._

_She has to get out of here._

_She seizes the first backpack she can get her hands on, not before a splash of someone’s blood sprays her right shoulder. She wants to look to the right just to check it’s not her partner, but survival kicks in faster than her humanity and she spins on her heels to run the other way._

_Fast is not fast enough and a blade skims her left cheek, there’s sharp burning where the silver must’ve nicked her flesh and she takes her hand to her face in dumbfounded instinct. Move, faster, run._

_She stops. The other girl aims again._

_The depth of her vision registers movement and death all around her, and she’s aware just how close to the cornucopia she is. People fall, while other’s stand in the background but she can only distinguish the second blade coming in her direction._

_She will not die here._

_She puts the backpack between her and the blade just in time; but the force knocks her to the ground. She tries to scramble to her feet; but there’s suddenly too much blood coursing through her arteries and the shaking is too much to stand back up again. She scans her surroundings with her peripheral vision and even though she can taste the coppery scent of blood within the air, the girl from District 2 is the only thing that exists and she’s getting more blades ready, and she will be an easy target if she keeps still on the floor._

_She allows herself a moment of vulnerability in the chaos; one free moment of thought. She blocks out all the sounds, the shouts, the pleadings, the cannons booming back and forth, and thinks of her mother at home.  Not her mother as she is now catatonic and full of numbing pain; but the woman she once was when the morphling hadn’t ruined her yet. She remembers why her mother’s so destroyed, how the Capitol robbed her of her sister – her aunt – and she remembers her own words to Haymitch before setting foot in this haunted land._

_She closes her right fist around the blade that’s stuck prisoner in her backpack, the same blade the girl from District 2 so skillfully and beautifully aimed at her heart and she tugs as hard as she can._

_The rest happens almost of its own accord._

_Madge takes one look at where the girl is standing; and then the force of her arm makes the tendons in her shoulders throb. The blade spins point and end in the air, and Madge closes her eyes forcefully; and her heart pumps louder in her ears._

_She knows it’s happened before the cannon sounds. She hasn’t seen it but she knows the blade is stuck right in between the other girl’s eyes.  She suddenly remembers Ceasar Flickerman’s blue hair and the words “I’ve got a very good aim” spoken in her own voice echoing back to her; and she thinks she will be sick._

_But she won’t. She will get out of here and her heart will beat even if the Careers are now going to claim more than just her blood._

_Is that girl… dead?_  Prim asks from behind the curtain of their mother’s hair, but Katniss doesn’t want to answer, doesn’t want to dwell in it just yet. Instead she keeps staring idly at the screen.

Madge doesn’t open her eyes to look in the direction of the girl from District 2. Instead, she gets up from the ground with her backpack, and runs away from the scene, a steady flow of crimson smearing down her chin. Katniss thinks about a single moment frozen in time, a Wednesday at school, at lunch; Madge’s face smudged up with red strawberries she had collected in the woods for her.  It was a lighter shade of red back then; this red is darker, heavier, braver.

There’s a collective gasp all around the Seam and Katniss can almost hear the whispers in the houses nearby, shaking with pride –  _did you see that? a Career was taken down! By one of us! By Madge! -_  The whole of Twelve is rumbling, vibrating, hoping.

But Katniss doesn’t hope. The only hope she’s ever known is somewhere in that arena, making its way through the woods like scattered dandelion seeds, while the other three Careers make their horrified assessment of the one casualty they hadn’t counted on this early in the Game; they vow vengeance and their bloodlust bursts like a balloon on a Capitol parade. Which is exactly the reason why Katniss does the only thing no one in the whole District seems to be doing.

Katniss worries. The sweat in her palms turns every surface she touches clammy and oily but the wheels in her head don’t stop spinning, threading and weaving the repercussions of this single act on the other blonde head she has been so invested in. The Careers will look for Madge, and Madge needs Peeta in order for whatever their plan to stay alive is, and Peeta’s kindness as an 11 year old boy to a starving 11 year old girl  _must_  be repaid.

Is that girl dead?

Is this going to bring him at death’s end?

_Yes_. Katniss answers Prim’s question just as the cannon sounds, but the inside of her mouth turns jagged and rasp as she breathes it; she doesn’t know what the entirety of that  _yes_ ’s meaning yet, and what if she never gets to pay her debt.

 

 

_Clove. That was her name. She was incredibly good with knives and sharp things; she should’ve known the dangers of playing with double-edged swords. She knows there should be some poetic justice in dying by your own choice of poison, and Madge could’ve appreciated the irony if she hadn’t been the one delivering the justice herself._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there. It's been a while. I hope you're all still interested in this story. 
> 
> btw, I'm peetaspearlx over at tumblr. You're all welcome to hang out. I always have cookies on the table.

**Author's Note:**

> First Fanfic in a while. Title comes from the beautiful song "Youth" by Daughter.
> 
> Special thanks to Sabrina (lightninglightstheway @ tumblr) and Jessa (misshoneywell) for reading this beforehand.


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